Apple has turned the magic of software development from “how cool would this be?” to “how cool would Apple be with this?”
That’s an environment of software suppression instead of free innovation, and Apple has felt little pressure to change.
For anyone concerned about the security and privacy implications, don’t fall for the misconceptions perpetuated by Apple: non-App Store apps will still be sandboxed (so they can’t access other app or system data), and also scanned for malware by Apple - just like App Store apps!
And that's just as true while you're small. You have six friends and three of them have iPhones, you can't get them all to switch to your own app.
Meanwhile Apple's "loss" is of an app that they purposely didn't want, e.g. because it might have displaced iMessage by being a better SMS app (which they don't allow). They don't ban everything, they ban the things that are in their anti-competitive business advantage to ban.
https://www.ft.com/content/3f7ab3fc-c4f4-11e9-a8e9-296ca6651...
iOS is more secure than Android not simply because the App Store is better curated than the Play Store, but protections built in its very own operating system model. There are permissions restrictions that Apple has guarded carefully and not subject to removal through the permitting of third party app stores.
Furthermore, because Apple still has ultimate control of its operating system, it can design a careful flow to enable the use of third party app stores and side loading. It can hide it deep in Settings behind multitudes of "are you sure?" windows and security checks. It can coax users not to relinquish protections.
Hell, if Apple embraced the whole decentralized app store idea, it can provide an AppStoreKit SDK and sets of standards for third party app stores to adopt, a sort of security certification system that they can choose to conform to and be recognized for meeting Apple standards, similar to Apple's verified third-party repair stores.
The idea that allowing third party app stores will doom iOS is an anti-Apple critique in disguise, because it claims that Apple is helpless outside of its App Store. There is a lot more Apple can do.
This is by far the most under-appreciated point in all the dialog around third-party app stores (and intentionally downplayed by Apple itself). Apple doesn't have to control the store to control the platform. The degree to which independently-distributed binaries can still be locked down remains entirely within Apple's control, and if they really do somehow fail to stop this legislation (realistically, I see both Apple and Google tying it up in the courts for years) expect a new level of hardening in iOS and Android from top to bottom.
Ironically, this will probably be better for security in the long run.
[Citation Needed]
>With malicious apps infiltrating Play on a regular, often weekly, basis, there’s currently little indication the malicious Android app scourge will be abated. That means it’s up to individual end users to steer clear of apps like Joker. The best advice is to be extremely conservative in the apps that get installed in the first place.
A good guiding principle is to choose apps that serve a true purpose and, when possible, choose developers who are known entities. Installed apps that haven’t been used in the past month should be removed unless there’s a good reason to keep them around.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/09/joker...
If they make the flow add package signers (or maybe a packagename,signer tuple), that would both be more friction than a on/off checkbox and possibly a better way to do it for users. I may want apps X from Y, but I don't want it if it's signed by someone else and I may not want other apps, etc.
From the users point of view side loading allows only a reduction in security. All those tracking restrictions? App Store submission policy. All those raw data access protections? App Store rejecting sandbox features that are unsafe.
There is a reason malware is a huge problem on android but not on iOS.
Except Unity doesn't make the only device that Unity games can run on.
Apple should be making their money from the phones, not seeing the phones as a utility to get even more licensing fees ($99/yr, 30% cut of all payments) from developers.
But also doesn't the $99/yr charged to put apps on the store count as a license, making your Unity example sound even more monopolistic for Apple.
So it is said, but is this actually true? Anecdotally, my non-technical parents have been android users for 10 years and malware is a non-issue. I'd be interested in data that could demonstrate otherwise.
But a strong benefit to the App Store for me is being able to manage and cancel my subscriptions from a central place. No going through 5 screens, no being forced to call, no any of that crap.
I can already see apps refusing to carry through the App Store so they can control more, and I am not looking forward to that.
We'll see what actually happens but I personally I doubt that Apple values user experience more than it values gouging developers for profit. The Apple that would, is long gone.
Exactly. Apple would have to actually... compete. I suppose I can understand why this fills them with dread, but they have a clear path to retaining developers: compete!
I don't think you'll find many apps jumping ship entirely. They might offer lower prices elsewhere.
The biggest issue for me personally is that it's not clear how, or if, sideloaded apps are sandboxed and how they're granted permissions. The warnings seem intentionally designed to play on those fears. If they're sandboxed the same as other apps and have fine grained permission controls I'd do a lot more sideloading.
You're in luck! Another way to [solve problem] is to [introduce another problem]. XD
You'd be smarter to trust your money to drug dealers or your put it in a sack and have your 5 year old cousin watch it real close.
When with this there are no rules forcing them to do anything since they can just ship outside the store.
This doesn't address my issue (also I don't want another one I want to keep everything in a single place in settings on my phone). Considering I have never used PayPal for any of my subscriptions on the web I don't see this catching on for mobile either.
If a company wants to put me through hoops to make unsubscribing hard, there is zero chance they will opt to use something that makes it easy if they have the choice.
If services universally had an obvious cancel button that did exactly what it says it does without a runaround, then yeah the premium makes zero sense.
So I assume given the price that the extra 30 (or 15) is calculated into the price.
So my answer would be yes, if they said I could lower it by going through their website I would continue to do it through the app. If they removed the option completely I would stop using it and find an alternative.
I will not support shady business practices and hurdles to unsubscribe is one of the worst in my opinion.
You miss the fundamental thing which is that the charge is specifically for publishers for a reason. It's because it absolutely is worth 30% to every business who wants to reach a lucrative market.
If it's as strong a benefit as you believe then developers will keep offering it.
I don't bet on this sticking around if it can at all be broken.
I pay for Copilot on my iPhone to keep track of finances.
Had that not been the case I would have never subscribed which gives the developers and apple that money.
Basically apple is getting more money from me because I took more of a risk on something.
"A Covered Company shall not impose restrictions on communications of developers with the users of the App through an App or direct outreach to a user concerning legitimate business offers, such as pricing terms and product or service offerings."
Yay, more spam (probably all starting with "Dear user, we have a legitimate business offer for you!")
It is assumed you have a device. Not installing isn't a reasonable option. You may think "just choose different banks, jobs and cards" but suitable alternatives were not available.
Having a second device would be ok, but very inconvenient and a little expensive due to needing multiple mobile contracts.
If those apps start to include more user hostile features such as spam and data collection, if there are no suitable alternatives we will live with those features. To some extent I am already seeing spam in bank apps, in the form of interstitials advertising shady third party services.
At the moment the app store policies and human review offer some buffer against those features being pervasively standard for such apps, but it's not hard to imagine a dystopian future where all e.g. BankId apps that are required to make payments for food everywhere all seem to have built-in spamvertising and tracking functions that no technical measures like sandboxing can prevent.
By then the app could've siphoned all of your data.
I look forward to:
* Torrent apps.
* xCloud (Game Pass game streaming app).
* Emulators.
* Adult themed apps.
* The Steam store.
* All the millions of apps which are blocked for any and no reason at all, since the approval process is arbitrary and broken at best.
Developers will lower prices and/or spend more on development when costs decrease.
Their first attempts pre-iPhone were very shoddy.
This is all just conjecture. You don't have proof that it will happen to iOS.
Things I guarantee you will see because of this: 1. You will have six different app stores on your phone. The Apple one, the Facebook one, the Google one, the Epic one, and at least two more, probably one from Disney and one from Spotify. 2. Those apps will absolutely not follow anything even close to App Store guidelines, and will wholesale be grabbing everything they can and exploiting every available opportunity to at best take your data and at worst add any kind of adware, malware, or anything else they can. 3. You thought payment dark patterns were bad Now? 4. Every goddamn app you want from every goddamn anything will be side-loaded. Some of these will be legit versions of the app you wanted.
You live in a world in which large predators want to devour you and small predators want to gnaw on you. You live in a world in which goddamn websites are running crypto-miners in your browser. You live in a world in which every company out there is aggressively hacking your dopamine circuits to try to get you to use their app more, and every company out there is grabbing every bit of data they can on you so they can sell it to whatever shady asshole’s willing to give them money for it. You live in a world where nation states are actively targeting you and everyone else around you from across the goddamn world. For fuck sake, you live in a world in which every entertainment studio out there is yanking their content from every other channel and demanding a subscription for them alone.
The App Store is an extractive tax on developers. It restricts user freedom. These things are true. But the goddamn naivety it takes to seriously think that the ability to side-load is going to make our actual lived day-to-day lives better instead of just hypercharging this dark forest hellscape we’ve invented for ourselves takes my breath away. Where the Hell have you people been Living for the last decade?
Don't want to sideload? Then don't. Only buy apps from the app store on mac and pc and android and iPhone. And don't hit me with "But what if XYZ takes their app out of the app store and goes sideloading only?!" Well then don't install their app, it's that simple. If the logic is if you want to sideload get an android phone, then the same should be applied to sideloading in general. Don't want to sideload? Then don't.
On PC, there's Microsoft's store. Amazon sells software downloads online, and I don't think they're the only ones. Lots of game stores of course. You can also buy software in actual stores, although that's less common, and sometimes it's just a big box with a download code.
But yeah, your take on sideloading seems reasonable. You don't need to do it. I ran a windows phone for years, it's fine to not have apps (and it's less fine to not have a good browser, but if Safari lingers enough, it'd be nice if you could sideload something else)
I like being able to buy things on the Windows Store and on Origin and Steam. If you are right and this makes things worse don't you think people will just stick with the Apple store?
Full disclosure : Apple shareholder.
No, they won’t. At a bare minimum, they’ll have the Google store and the Facebook store, and they’ll probably have a dozen others, because most people don’t actually care enough to make a principled stand on these kinds of things, but their lives will be shittier because of this, in the same way that we all have LinkedIn accounts even though LinkedIn is dogshit because we all need jobs and none of us care that much, but our lives are shittier because of LinkedIn and they’ll be shittier because of this.
Right now we just have contractual monopolies with no other options.
Let me turn this on its head. If you don't want Facebook, you're free not to download it.
> You live in a world in which large predators want to devour you and small predators want to gnaw on you
Right now Apple is that large predator. They take 30% (wtf!), have to examine all deploys (nevermind your emergency), have arbitrary rules, force unwanted and unfair Apple platform integration, separate you from your customers, etc.
Eventually the web will become the app store and software distribution without shackles will be new again.
Apple's false uni-channel model has been a disease on our industry for far too long. Bits are free to send, download, and run.
…They take 30% (wtf!)…
On 93% of the applications, Apple takes 0%. They vet your app for the users and handle distribution for $0.
They provide the development environment for free (Your developer identity costs you $100/year and is required to release software in the store, but the tools are free and you don't need an identity to use them for yourself.)
Of the remaining 7% of the applications, until you are pulling in $1,000,000/year from the Apple App Store the Apple takes 15% and pays the credit card processing costs out of that. (At the worst end for you, if you sell a $0.99 app or in-app-purchase, your credit card company is going to charge you maybe 12.4%, so you are right back in the same territory. My local deli won't even take a card for less than a $5 purchase.)
Now we come to the whales. Statistically about 0% of the apps, but they bring in the money. These guys are paying 30% and that is some serious coin. They are absolutely subsidizing the development tools and store mechanics. It must gaul them that they are the huge customer and are getting a negative discount.
I wonder how big a whale you have to be to go to a different store and take >70% of your users with you?
…have to examine all deploys (nevermind your emergency)…
People's milage varies here, and no one writes a blog post describing things working normally, but the store review process is so fast these days that I push my release candidate up, refill my "tea", ask the cat how her day is going, and TestFlight download my approved app to one of my untethered test devices to test. It's that fast. In the bad old days that process could have taken days for me, but now it's smooth. I've been releasing this app since there was an App Store and I've never had a release rejected, so maybe I get special treatment. And to be balanced, I know people in industries which have to educate the reviewer on the legality and compliance of their app on every release, so that part of the review process still could use some help. That isn't doing Apple or the app developer any good.
But… even though I agree with many of your points, I want all my apps to come through Apple, and I don't want to have to provide friends-and-family tech support to all my knuckleheads who will cargo cult install some unmonitored store and end up on the bad end of a bad person's scam.
Even if we sideload an app, with modern mobile OS architecture many classes of apps will be almost useless if sideloaded apps will not be able to use push notifications provided by an operating system.
Currently you have 2 ways of providing this to your users: run the app in the background, maintaining a persistent connection to the server, or via push notifications, where an app is woken from disabled state and displays a message. And background processes are killed off on iOS in less than 15 seconds (the documentation states 30 seconds, but we've never seen it in practice). That leaves push notifications the only choice.
I have disallowed notifications for almost all apps on my iPhone. I will check an app when I want to check it, not when the app developer wants me to.
Conversely, it will also be great for any possible sideloaded app to also have the system give the user that same choice.
Now if one side starts to impose their choices on the other is when we start having a problem.
Do you want WhatsApp to deliver a message to you from your mom or special one that they urgently need help? Or should they wait till you will want to check the app?
The idea that apps just get to notify me whenever they want is insane. This is especially true in games.
Heck theses days a website gets to buck me about it just by me visiting it.
Android has had alternate app stores for years. I don't recall any of them being a panacea for poor struggling devs held captive by Google Play. I stopped offering my apps on any of them as it was never worth the bother.
What problem is this trying to solve for who exactly? I don't see any way this ends up as a win for small devs.
And let’s not pretend that Apple is making a lot of money off of Indy developers. Most of the App Store revenue is coming from pay to win games and loot boxes.
Where do I sign up?
And the point of this monopoly busting legislation was to create a bigger monopoly?
At the very least, people should be allowed to install browsers that aren't Safari.
The only real path forward is that a stripped-down version of it is added to some sort of big spending bill, similar to what they did with the tobacco minimum age[1].
https://tobacco.ucsf.edu/congress-raises-minimum-age-tobacco...
Their entire model is based on selling hardware near at-cost and making up the margins in software cuts (and accessories).
If you can side-load any game you want now you are just buying a privately subsidized PC.
> Those aren't general-purpose devices
So if Apple sold an "iPad Gaming Edition" then none of this would matter?
But consoles today are only limited to gaming and entertainment because the manufacturer artificially limits which software can run on it (and who can develop for it).
I don’t know if they should be opened up like the iPhone (which 1000% should), but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if they were. Some business models would have to be changed, but that happens all the time. Consumers will certainly benefit from more choices.
At the very least, even if they aren’t treated the same as phones/tablets, I think the ridiculous DMCA restriction about jailbreaking consoles needs to die. Jailbreaking a phone/tablet is legal, but doing it for a game console is illegal because it could maybe lead to piracy.
That’s obviously dumb (because jailbreaking a phone could also lead to piracy), but it also acts as a convenient legal barrier that protects console manufacturers from competition. In the early days of home consoles, some publishers would jailbreak consoles to be able to sell games without going through the manufacturer. EA did this as part of a strategy to negotiate more favorable terms with Sega, for example. The threat of competition forced Sega to the bargaining table, and in the end consumers benefited from the games EA was able to publish.
If it doesn't, there's grounds for injunctions and lawsuits aplenty.
Doesn't Google already allow side loading or is that no longer so?
Same will be true of employees and their employers.
Same is true of employers and their employees.
So what you are talking about is in fact already there, and Apple is fine with it and facilitates it.
Same won’t be true via a third party App Store.
I'm similarly wary. But Apple and Google have been bad stewards of their market power. If the only thing protecting our rights is Cupertino's goodwill, perhaps that's an orthogonal issue for lawmakers to take up (and citizens to lobby for).
Can you explain how? Because I don’t think they have at all. App developers are not their customers, they are business partners, and prioritizing customers over business partners is laudable.
This needs a fix, and clearly we don't have one currently. No reason to let another ill occur in the meantime.
You just described MDM. It has been supported by iOS for a long time, allowed to do exactly what you describe, and this bill won't change that aspect of it.
The permanent solution to this are federal data privacy and ownership laws.
I can only think of a couple.
Potentially opening up of services like notifications so that apps that don't have play services can get notifications without destroying the users battery.
Disabling or neutering of the awful SDK banking apps and games use to detect root and not run.
They're small but annoying things but hopefully are outcomes from this bill.
Imagine if Google were forced to allow sideloading on Android. then other companies (like Amazon) could offer their own App Stores; Google Play's profits would tank, and they'd no longer be able to charge 30% platform fees. Right? ;-)
Oh, wait...
https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/alibaba-alipay-mini-progra...
Why is Google against side-loading? It is already possible to side-load on Android devices, what is their argument?
money?
If it is explicitly allowed, it will open the door for some extremely high quality, curated stores that can break google's iron grip on revenue, advertising, privacy, etc...
Have you tried side loading something on Android lately? As an HM user you could probably fogure it out, but imagine trying to create a competitor to Google Play. How the hell would you onboard new customers? How do you teach a grandmother how to dig through their phone’s settings app and convince her to ignore all of the scary warnings that Google throws in her face?
Google doesn’t want side loading just as much as Apple.
I think Google is against being required to allow third-party app stores to have feature parity with its own, and against being required to allow third-party payments in apps purchased from the Play store. Those things would reduce Google's revenue.
It’s a front door for piracy and malware. Bad actors give your unsuspecting victim instructions on how to install this great app!
There are a lot of passionate people trying to make these alternative hardware and software marketplaces work, but passion is no replacement for genuine demand so supply is scant. Given the unfortunate historical trajectory, quality will always be wanting. So, I guess I'm against a practical solution that entrenches the status quo when there's an ideological solution that would make these poor options obsolete. I'm probably just holding my breath though.
People should want something they don’t want.
Because…
People who want to make that thing would like a job making it.
But it’s backwards, you can’t say that people “should” be a certain way you have to look at how they actually are.
Being passionate about building something does not convey a right to a job doing that. It makes for a fine hobby - but outside of that build something people want.
I, however, would like to pay people to make this thing that may just happen to have a passionate origin. I also think many people want some polished version of this thing to exist, despite not wanting to fund its manufacture and maintenance. I think the inconvenience to the user in the interim is worth it, but many/most don't agree with me and that is one reason it doesn't exist.
Making legislation to force third-party marketplaces to exist on a "platform" is more in line with your concern, to be honest. It's forcing an entity to do something it doesn't want to do. If consumers cared about this, they would move to a different platform or gasp create a competitor that does what they want. I already know of some people that have moved from Apple to Android simply because side-loading is possible.
Also, I take issue with the notion that in order for something to exist today, it has to have "broad mainstream appeal". A marketplace by its very nature benefits from diversity of marketed goods, but just like any other product, it shouldn't need to completely displace market leaders to exist. The rise of megalythic companies, VC being promised eventual Google-scale growth of their bets and people's general squeamishness at using anything at all unpolished or inconvenient has created this world where everything needs to be huge in order to be considered successful in any meaningful way.
F-droid is a thing and I don't think anyone would argue it
A. Doesn't exist.
B. Is a real competitor to the Google Play Store.
C. Doesn't invovle people in the market, both developers and users, who are happy that it exists and wish to further it's growth.
I can say, I think a lot of the problems we currently have and ones we are trying to spotfix with legislation could be better solved via a more conscious consumption. "Should" is a subjective term based on a cost/benefit analysis and while I think people should act differently, I don't think they should be barred from acting as they have today nor are they morally corrupt for doing so.
Everyone buckets and weights the pros and cons of everything differently.
You're bringing up non-profit projects as proof that consumers aren't doing the right thing.
But, don't forget, there used to be a highly competitive commercial smartphone market until the competition was whittled down through acquisitions and exits.
Microsoft, Blackberry, Palm, Apple, Nokia, and Android all had their own smartphone OS simultaneously for a brief moment in time.
Consumers can't be blamed for market consolidation. If that's the case might as well blame them for T-Mobile buying Sprint or for the AT&T or Microsoft monopolies.
I don't know if this bill is the right bill but anti-trust is an issue of growing importance. You buy an expensive durable good and it shouldn't be left to the manufacturer to decide whether it wants to screw you over or not (and this same concept applies to things like cars, washing machines, etc).
Put simply, don't buy products that lock you in if you don't want products to lock you in. It seems like consumers are capable of making decisions based on price, durability, features, color etc. why is any other variable sacred?
The answer is consumers don't care about these issues enough to pay for them. Would we have this right-to-repair argument if consumers went out of their way to buy repairable devices? Lenovo, Apple, Google, et. al. have been moving to solder more and more components to the board and glue everything together and consumers haven't punished these producers with their wallets yet. If you want a repairable device, buy one -- this isn't a consolidation problem. If you want a phone that you can run a different OS on, buy one. If you want a red toothbrush, don't buy a blue one and complain (or make a law) that it should be red.
Pine64 is a for-profit entity. If you want a repairable phone that you can side-load anything on, maybe give your money to them instead of Google-Apple. Likewise, if you want a repairable laptop maybe buy a Librem 14 instead of an MacBook. Maybe if you want an open hardware ePub reader buy an InkPlate instead of a Kindle. These things exist and more would exist -- with more polish -- if people voted with their wallets. These are real companies trying to make real money with real products for real people.
The smart phone operating systems you listed would have flourished if more people purchased their respective devices. You can't install Sony's OS on an XBOX and while I don't purchase consoles and think buying a single-purpose gimped device is almost always a bad idea, if people want to buy what XBOX is selling, so be it. Apple consumers are not left in the dark about their ability to use an alternative app store and while I think it's a horribly limiting experience, Apple consumers keep throwing money at the company.
I'm not just blaming the consumer. I'm also stating that the consumer is a vital part of the market and their action or inaction results in a market more aligned with those decisions.
Maybe Apple will give developers the ability to determine whether the app was installed from Apple or some other source.
I mean, given that this bill is targeting two companies, I'm not sure your analogy holds. There clearly is another mall you could move to. You just wouldn't get the patrons at the other mall. And they charge the same and always have. And, your business doesn't even have to be located in the mall if you think the fees are unreasonable. You just don't get the benefit of all the people already shopping at the mall. I also generally want to have my cake and eat it, too, though.
The fix for that is legislative, not judicial. The legislature can decide that two malls with bad rates is a situation that needs fixing.
And there are plenty of other malls to move to, is just that your customers aren’t there.
I really don’t get the complaint about Apple’s monopoly on iOS. To me, it’s like VW’s monopoly on Jettas.
[0]https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/271...
[0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25674655/how-to-turn-on-...
You could side-load a completely bespoke browser engine, but within the current sandbox restrictions it would be significantly worse than the Safari-based one. Apple would have to both allow side-loading AND weaken the OS's sandboxing restrictions to get a e.g. Chromium based browser engine running natively.
They have enough of their own powerhouse apps to make their store happen too, which is scary. All they have to do is say that the only way to get Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp is through the Meta Store and they have a huge audience overnight.
Funny how apple made the process so difficult and because of that, when they lose their monopoly, Google and others will be there waiting to implement the parent comment's plan.
I mean it's absolutely nuts that the web is basically unusable without an aggressive content filter but obviously native apps are gonna be angels.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Apple are some of the scummiest companies and their software is full of dark patterns.
Apple’s App Store does a lot to protect me.
I guess I view this bill much as a union member might view a “Right to work bill”. Theoretically it is increasing user choice, but in practice it will just allow a race to the bottom in terms of privacy and dark patterns.
The way it affects me is that now, developers are faced with the choice - adhere to Apple’s privacy standards or lose out on the lucrative iOS market. With side loading, they will have the further option of just telling people to side load their apps and not put them on the App Store.
This if I desire that the popular apps I use respect my privacy and avoid dark patterns (like making it impossible to cancel subscriptions), then them having an option to avoid Apple’s oversight makes it less likely that they will adhere to these standards.
